The 49.3 is a mechanism in the French Constitution that allows the government to pass laws without a vote in the National Assembly.
Basically the government can pass a law without a vote.
Macron through the Prime Minister decided to pass the pension reform using the 49.3, because he knew that this reform would not get the majority of votes.
Many consider that 49.3 is anti-democratic because it allows to do without the votes of the deputies and senators who are the representatives of the people.
First, for those of us who are not French, I will cite Article 49.3 of the French Constitution:
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« Le Premier ministre peut, après délibération du Conseil des ministres, engager la responsabilité du Gouvernement devant l'Assemblée nationale sur le vote d'un projet de loi de finances ou de financement de la sécurité sociale. Dans ce cas, ce projet est considéré comme adopté, sauf si une motion de censure, déposée dans les vingt-quatre heures qui suivent, est votée dans les conditions prévues à l'alinéa précédent. Le Premier ministre peut, en outre, recourir à cette procédure pour un autre projet ou une proposition de loi par session ». Article 49 alinéa 3
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Google Translate gives:
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“The Prime Minister may, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers, engage the responsibility of the Government before the National Assembly on the vote on a finance or social security financing bill. In this case, this project is considered adopted, unless a motion of censure, tabled within the following twenty-four hours, is voted under the conditions provided for in the preceding paragraph. The Prime Minister may, in addition, use this procedure for another bill or a bill per session”. Article 49 paragraph 3
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Here is how the New York Times explained it 2 days ago (16 MAR 2023):
TITLE: What Is Article 49.3 of the French Constitution? SUBTITLE: A move used before by President Emmanuel Macron’s government can push bills through the lower house of Parliament without a vote. But detractors view it as an undemocratic tool to strong-arm lawmakers.
By Aurelien Breeden March 16, 2023
Article 49.3 of the French Constitution enables a government to push a bill through the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, without a vote.
The move is perfectly legal, and it has been enshrined in the Constitution since its inception in 1958 — part of several institutional tools that Charles de Gaulle, then France’s leader, insisted upon in order to rein in the parliamentary instability of France’s Fourth Republic and give the executive stronger control.
But over the past decade, Article 49.3 has increasingly been seen as an undemocratic tool, used by the government to strong-arm lawmakers.
If the government activates Article 49.3, the bill is pushed through without a vote. But there is a cost: Opposition lawmakers then have 24 hours to file a no-confidence motion against the government. At least one-tenth of lawmakers in the lower house have to support the motion for it to go to the floor. Lawmakers vote on that motion in the days that follow.
To succeed, a no-confidence motion must get an absolute majority of votes — more than half of the total number of lawmakers elected to the lower house.
A successful no-confidence motion topples the government — meaning the prime minister and the cabinet, but not the president — and the bill is rejected. If the no-confidence motion fails, the bill stands.
It is exceedingly rare for no-confidence motions to succeed in France, and those that the opponents of the pension bill will file within the next 24 hours are not expected to be any different.
While President Emmanuel Macron’s left-wing and far-right opponents will gladly sign on to a no-confidence motion, many mainstream conservative lawmakers — even those who opposed the pension bill — are reluctant to topple the government.
Mr. Macron has also leaked the threat of dissolving the National Assembly and calling new elections if his government was toppled, and some lawmakers who won tight races do not want to go back to the ballot box. Still, Mr. Macron’s opponents are particularly furious over the pension bill, and they could get more support for a no-confidence motion than they could have before.
Mr. Macron’s government successfully used Article 49.3 multiple times in the fall to pass budget bills. But labor union leaders and other opponents have warned that using it on the pension bill — a far more controversial and consequential piece of legislation — would further inflame tensions and anger protesters who have marched and gone on strike around France over the past two months.
The article, after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne used it on Thursday, has now been used 100 times since 1958. Michel Rocard, a Socialist prime minister under President François Mitterrand, used it 28 times, the most to date.
The government can use Article 49.3 once only per legislative session on a regular bill, but as many times as it likes on a budget bill — which is how the government decided to file the pension overhauls.
To properly answer your question is rather difficult because the fundamental organization of the national governments of France and the USA are considerably different, so this will take a while to explain and I am not sure that I will be answering your question.
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One enormous difference between France and the United States is that France's national government is a "unitary government". Most national governments are. A unitary government means all the power resides with the national government.
However, the United States is a federation. This means that it consists of states which have considerable independence from each other, but, also, that the federal government is limited in its powers.
So, the federal government cannot just issue any law whatsoever... and neither can the states. Furthermore, if a state law conflicts with the federal law, the federal law usually wins; this is called "supremacy" and is enshrined in the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the US Constitution. Of course, a state can challenge a federal law in the US Supreme Court if it believes that the federal law is unconstitutional.
All of this said, Congress has created various agencies and departments of the federal government which can specialize in operating various parts of our county without having everything be voted on in Congress.
For instance, Congress doesn't make up the rules for aviation. The Federal Aviation Administration does that. The FAA is part of the Department of Transportation which is a part of the Executive Branch of the federal government. Congress created the FAA and gave it the powers that it has. Congress is the ultimate authority here, though, so it can legislate the FAA out of existence if it wished. So, there are still votes on give or take away powers within the government, but those parts of the government which have been given their powers use them as they see fit.
Furthermore, there is always the judicial branch to arbitrate any problems.
For instance, very often, companies or states get irked with rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) so they sue the EPA in federal court claiming that the EPA has overstepped its authority.
Many of the opinions here will cite "Executive Orders" and, to a significant extent, that is true. However, any executive order is based on the Constitution and/or United States Code (that is, federal law) that gives the President the power to act.
January 25, 2021 TITLE: What Is an Executive Order?
One of the most common “presidential” documents in our modern government is an executive order. Every American president has issued at least one, totaling more than (as of this writing) 13,731 since George Washington took office in 1789. Media reports of “changes made by executive order,” or “executive orders to come” rarely explain what the document is, or other technical details, such as why, or how. They seem to be “instant law,” and, at times, steeped in controversy. Here, “Teaching Legal Docs” tries to unpack these sometimes controversial legal documents produced by the executive branch of the U. S. government.
An executive order is a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. They are numbered consecutively, so executive orders may be referenced by their assigned number, or their topic. Other presidential documents are sometimes similar to executive orders in their format, formality, and issue, but have different purposes. Proclamations, which are also signed and numbered consecutively, communicate information on holidays, commemorations, federal observances, and trade. Administrative orders—e. g. memos, notices, letters, messages—are not numbered, but are still signed, and are used to manage administrative matters of the federal government. All three types of presidential documents—executive orders, proclamations, and certain administrative orders—are published in the Federal Register, the daily journal of the federal government that is published to inform the public about federal regulations and actions. They are also catalogued by the National Archives as official documents produced by the federal government. Both executive orders and proclamations have the force of law, much like regulations issued by federal agencies, so they are codified under Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is the formal collection of all of the rules and regulations issued by the executive branch and other federal agencies. Executive orders are not legislation; they require no approval from Congress, and Congress cannot simply overturn them. Congress may pass legislation that might make it difficult, or even impossible, to carry out the order, such as removing funding. Only a sitting U. S. President may overturn an existing executive order by issuing another executive order to that effect.
The format, substance, and documentation of executive orders has varied across the history of the U. S. Presidency. Today, executive orders follow a format and strict documentation system. Typically, the White House issues the order first, then it is published in the Federal Register, the official journal of the federal government. As a more permanent documentation, orders are also recorded under Title 3 of the U. S. Code of Federal Regulations, which is simply a codification of the permanent rules issued by the executive branch of U. S. government. Executive orders are numbered. Each order is assigned a number that is unique to the order and consecutive in relation to past executive orders. The Department of State began numbering executive orders in 1907, and even worked backward to assign numbers to all of the orders on file since 1862. In 1936, the Federal Register Act put into place the system that is still in use today. Occasionally, an executive order that predates the numbering system is located, which might result in assigning it a number already in use with a distinguishing letter (e. g. 7709, 7709-A). As a result, there are actually more total executive orders in existence than the most recent number.
There are formatting differences between executive orders released by the White House press office, those printed in the Federal Register, those printed under Title 3, or those found in digital archives as HTML text. Regardless of source, however, all formats will include basic components that are central to the executive order document. Those components are outlined below, and numbered in the nearby example:
1. Heading. Executive orders are generally labeled as such, include a number, and a date of issue. Historically, however, these features might appear at the end of an order, rather than the beginning, and the number might be handwritten at the bottom of the last page.
2. Title. Each executive order has a title, which typically indicates what the order concerns.
3. Introduction. The introduction usually begins with phrasing to the effect of “by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America,” and follows with and introduction to what is being ordered. The introduction typically acts to legitimate the order, and may even resemble the beginning of traditional legislation with a “whereas” or a “therefore.” The introduction may be longer or shorter, depending on the complexity of the order, whether it quotes other existing orders or laws, or offers the President’s legal rationale for issuing the order. From the introduction, we can note that the order is written in the first person, from the President to other officials or personnel in the executive branch or federal agencies.
4. Body of the order. The orders in the executive order are grouped into sections and subsections, each numbered or lettered according to a general outline. The body of the executive order will be longer or shorter, depending on the order contents. Sections spell out the orders, action steps to realize the orders, and other directives, such as study or evaluation, and subsections add additional details, including any relevant definitions. The last section in the order is typically administrative in nature, authorizing publication of the order in the Federal Register, or offering a relevant disclaimer.
5. Signature. Executive orders are signed by the issuing President. Following the signature is a “White House” notation and date that the order was issued. If there was a date in the heading, the dates in the heading and signature typically match. Executive orders that are pulled from the Federal Register will also include a time and date stamp of when the order was published, and a billing code.
Here is an example of an Executive Order. This one is particularly famous because it is the Executive Order from September 1957 in which President Eisenhower ordered US military forces to Little Rock Arkansas to ensure that the orders of federal courts were being complied with.
PROVIDING ASSISTANCE FOR THE REMOVAL OF AN OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE WITHIN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS
WHEREAS on September 23, 1957, I issued Proclamation No.3204 reading in part as follows:
"WHEREAS certain persons in the state of Arkansas, individually and in unlawful assemblages, combinations, and conspiracies, have willfully obstructed the enforcement of orders of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas with respect to matters relating to enrollment and attendance at public schools, particularly at Central High School, located in Little Rock School District, Little Rock, Arkansas; and
"WHEREAS such willful obstruction of justice hinders the execution of the laws of that State and of the United States, and makes it impracticable to enforce such laws by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings; and
"WHEREAS such obstruction of justice constitutes a denial of the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution of the United States and impedes the course of justice under those laws:
"NOW, THEREFORE, I, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, President of the United States, under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the United States, including Chapter 15 of Title 10 of the United States Code, particularly sections 332, 333 and 334 thereof, do command all persons engaged in such obstruction of justice to cease and desist therefrom, and to disperse forthwith;" and
WHEREAS the command contained in that Proclamation has not been obeyed and willful obstruction of enforcement of said court orders still exists and threatens to continue:
NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the United States, including Chapter 15 of Title 10, particularly sections 332, 333 and 334 thereof, and section 301 of Title 3 of the United States Code, It is hereby ordered as follows:
SECTION 1. I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of Defense to order into the active military service of the United States as he may deem appropriate to carry out the purposes of this Order, any or all of the units of the National Guard of the United States and of the Air National Guard of the United States within the State of Arkansas to serve in the active military service of the United States for an indefinite period and until relieved by appropriate orders.
SEC. 2. The Secretary of Defense is authorized and directed to take all appropriate steps to enforce any orders of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas for the removal of obstruction of justice in the State of Arkansas with respect to matters relating to enrollment and attendance at public schools in the Little Rock School District, Little Rock, Arkansas. In carrying out the provisions of this section, the Secretary of Defense is authorized to use the units, and members thereof, ordered into the active military service of the United States pursuant to Section 1 of this Order.
SEC. 3. In furtherance of the enforcement of the aforementioned orders of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, the Secretary of Defense is authorized to use such of the armed forces of the United States as he may deem necessary.
SEC. 4. The Secretary of Defense is authorized to delegate to the Secretary of the Army or the Secretary of the Air Force, or both, any of the authority conferred upon him by this Order.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER THE WHITE HOUSE, September 24, 1957
The closest thing would be the president's power to issue an executive order, though these are not actually laws. They can be completely erased by the next administration if the supreme court doesn't strike it down themselves before that, often with one or many companies and interest groups leading the way. An executive order also cannot bypass the constitution, and they generally can't pertain to anything outside of the executive branch's scope of authority. It's generally more effective to infringe on individual rights by delegating the policymaking to the agencies that are supposed to simply enforce the law as it is written rather than make the policies. This is a fundamental problem with agencies like the ATF, FBI, BLM, and EPA.
It's also not uncommon especially in the current administration for the president to try and push an executive order that is blatantly beyond his power to do so, just so he and his party can complain about it for campaigning purposes.
I have no idea if the US has an equivalent to the 49.3. I've heard about it on a French news channel but I had no idea of what it was. Thank you for telling us what it is.
But yes, I do agree that it's not a democratic mechanism. Also, I think French people are right in protesting and fighting against the retirement law.
There is no direct equivalent to "49.3" in the United States, as the French provision is specific to the French political system.
"49.3" is a provision of the French Constitution that allows the government to adopt certain legislative measures without the need for a vote in the National Assembly, known as "adoption without a vote."
However, this provision has been criticized by some sectors of French society, as it can be seen as a way to avoid debate and discussion about policies.
In the United States, the legislative process is different, and generally involves public discussion and debate before a law is passed.
Legislative measures are discussed and voted on in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and then must be approved by the president before becoming law.
The president also has the power to veto a law passed by Congress, which means the law cannot be passed unless changes are made to address the president's objections.
In short, the legislative process in the United States is based on public discussion and debate, rather than adoption without a vote.
As you know I am Australian but the US President can issue executive orders in terms of the operation of the federal gov't as I understand. Not quite the same as legislation/law but similar in effect. A new incoming President could cancel such orders. I presume an incoming French president could campaign on using 49.3 to revoke Macron's law and do so when in office.
As much as we might not like it I tend to think it is not so uncommon at a level below legislation/law that nonetheless has significance.
Courts can in effect legislate by setting precedents in interpreting Law and it happens in all western countries.
There is also administrative law as to how a law might be actioned by bureaucrats.
In a number of cases legislation allows our Ministers to make decisions for example if a holocaust denier should be given a visa to enter the country is the first example to spring to mind. That is quite close to a US President executive order in that it is an operational decision that in effect becomes an order.
Good question so I'll be interested in how our American cousins answer.
I am not American, but Canadian, so I have been France this week. Burn that garbage, where is Gretas outrage? Right? France and Canada has monarchal ties, the US sodomized their monarchal ties ajd sent them packing. Many other nation will soon as well, fuck King Charles, limp wristed lich. Every nation should have Americas constitution. Now having said that, america is not immune. The Patriot Act, to my knwlowledge, couod he used in a such a way, but ask yourself, does anyone in Amaerica really want to provide an armed version of Paris. The house wouod be dead in a month.
As soon as French police defect, and they are nearly routed, its off with their heads for Macron and his goofball WEF cuckhold cabinet.
Break their chain of command France. We would rather fund you than Ukraine. Viva la Revolution!
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Anonymous
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No, there is not an equivalent to the 49.3 in the US. The US Constitution does not allow for the executive branch (i. e. the President) to pass laws without the approval of Congress. In the US, laws are passed through a legislative process that involves both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the President can either sign a bill into law or veto it. The US system is based on the principle of checks and balances, where each branch of government has its own powers and responsibilities, and no one branch can dominate the others.
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Anonymous
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Executive Presidential order. Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests.
No. That is tyranny. The closest thing is an executive order. Those orders must comply with laws passed by the legislature granting limited authority to the executive branch. Frequently, as is almost always the case with Diktator Biden, the executive branch inebriated overreaches to score political points. These are usually overturned in the courts. This is why the Dumbocrats want to pack the courts with progressives. They want to eliminate the inconvenient power of the people in the legislature.
It is accomplished by Congress passing vague, general laws and allowing regulatory bodies like the EPA to detail them. That's how The Swamp takes your rights away. The Congress could stop this by carefully writing laws so regulators can't skirt them.
No, then again i haven't read every State constitution, Still we do however have something called executive order which takes advantage of the enormous number of still in effect laws passed over the last 200 years to let a president do most anything they want.
We also have judicial edicts which effectively allow courts to declare any existing law required whatever they want so long as the executive is willing to enforce and the legislator is willing to fund said enforcement.
To my knowledge we don't have that. Just about all laws being passed in the U. S. have to be done by votes in the Senate and HoR. And of course the prez can have a say in it. But the closest thing we would have to what you have in France would be the president's execute decision powers.
Closest to that I can think of is in times of emergency. President can override Congress and issue executive orders with almost limitless power. Lincoln used an executive order in order to fight the Civil War, and in 1942 FDR approved Japanese internment camps during World War II with an executive order.
@nostalgiasenpi A President's executive order power comes from the large number of congress's previously passed and never sunset laws accumulated over the last 200 years.
Such is also why congress is largely irrelevant today. Among such laws are "emergency" powers and funding which are constantly abused by presidents.
I did notice the protests in France but I’m not sure as to why it seems the opposition to the pension reform is being viewed as it is. I understand that they want to change the age from 62 to 64 if I’m not mistaken to be eligible for a pension.
I understand most don’t want to see that changed. I’m curious as to why such protest. It’s only a matter of 2 years. Macron is trying to avoid not having to cut the amounts of the pension by doing this is I understand this correctly. What is the reason for him wanting to do this? Has the government mismanaged them and that’s the reason for him wanting the increase? Is that why there seems to be quite a bit of outrage over a difference of 2 years?
Please help me to understand what the cause of irritation for the French people over this matter is. I can’t help but think there is an underlying issue here that I’m unaware of. Not that I’m defending Macron but 2 years doesn’t seem like a big deal.
I’m just an outsider looking inward at the situation, and admittedly not well educated on this matter.
That said, it would seem to me those who govern France, the same as those who govern the UK were for quite some time enamored with trying to show how not racist they were and…not allowing but rather deliberately importing as many 3rd world Muslims as they possibly could.
How much then was spent on these people with various social programs, yet now they want to raise the retirement age and as you stated, and do so on the backs of the most disadvantaged.
It would seem to me if they had money in the form of social programs for their beloved Muslims who they imported with glee, that they should be no burden to their own citizens for having done so.
Am I wrong in this assessment?
America is just the same. Let all the illegals come. Give them money from the Social Security system (our pension system more or less) to pay for it. Which they do. Yet we hear how they will run out of money for it in roughly 10 years. They have $85 Million to give to Turkey and Syria for earthquake victims…yet will have no money for me or others when it’s time to retire. Money I paid into all my working years…since the age of 14 with my first job. This I think is criminal, not even just negligent. To give the money I should have to illegal immigrants and tell me you haven’t got my money when I need it. Money you made me give you by law.
Completely unacceptable.
So with the situation there, at lest to some extent it looks to me as if they had money for everyone but their own citizens, whom they do tax. They collected money and don’t want to pay at the due time because at least with that issue alone, some of it was mismanaged.
Meanwhile, here, these illegals don’t even pay most taxes because they work off the books. They collect from a system they don’t pay into. Yet, there’s no money for (me) us as that’s what they taxed us for.
Well, let's just say that it would have been better to present this law to the vote. Unfortunately, he preferred to ignore it. Note that this is already the eleventh time that the 49.3 is used under the Macron presidency
To be quite honest, since the Fifth Republic was instituted by De Gaulle all French presidents have used this 49.3
Well, let's say that the French Presidents are the worthy heirs of our kings of France and our emperors lol.
But they will say that when de Gaulle decided on the constitution, the French people approved it, and that therefore this 49.3 is legitimate.
But to be honest this 49.3 is not democratic in the sense that it can allow to pass a law without vote.
Article 49.3 was created in 1958 by De Gaulle and Debré to give substance to a rationalized parliamentarism and to put an end to governmental instability. I think that our presidents have largely diverted this law to pass the laws they want without going through the democratic way
Of course they have. It’s no different than when a nation declares a “state of emergency.” They ONLY do this so they can bypass the normal process of their country when it comes to enacting legislation.
And oddly, ODDLY, the “state of emergency” just keeps getting extended.
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